physics cards a joke

[Legless]

I've been reading these Ageia threads for some time now an i think many people slagging them off are missing the point (and no, i ain't got an Ageia card)...

First off, the Ageia card is a physics card and is meant to take the load off the CPU when calculating advanced physics, and NOT improve GFX or frame rates... People complain about the crappy way that GRAW only draws a few extra black blocks in an explosion with the Ageia PPU, but i have a theory as to what the problem is...

Scenario 1: You have a **** GFX card and are playing a game... You blow up a building and there is a nice explosion (No special effects, as you DON'T own an Ageia card)... Your framerates seem ok...

Scenario 2: You have a **** GFX card and are playing a game... You blow up a building, 1000's of 3D bricks fly around the screen, bouncing off each other (As you have a Ageia card)... Your framerate drops like mad, as you only have a **** GFX card to render all those flying bricks...

From the above scenarios, you can see, that if people expect the Ageia card to improve visuals, they are sadly mistaken, as it would be VERY GPU limited, as the more stuff it adds to the screen, the harder the GFX card would have to work, therefore meaning, the Ageia card is ONLY suited to top end GFX cards...

So please people, remember the Ageia card is a physics card and NOT a way to improve visuals or framerates... I for one think its a great idea, its just that so far its been poorly implemented and developers have rushed out code...

 

[drunkenmaster]

the problem is, something i'm not sure if anyones actually pointed out, that the PPU doesn't do anything AT ALL that the cpu can't do. any extra things added into games are simply things that when the game checks for the PPU it will enable if its there. i'm sure people will crack stuff so you can use the extra effects with no PPU in and then you can see whats really going on.

the simple fact is that you don't need to take away work from the cpu to a PPU if you have ample cpu power. but, with any game you won't be near the cpu limit when you are at your gpu limit. games are 70-80% limited by the gpu, any review will tell you that, any new conroe review will show this. while the conroe is a obviously much better cpu, at 1024x768 then with a 7900gtx/1900xtx or whatever the conroe shows a far far higher framerate in most games, because the gpu can draw basically whatever the cpu can throw at it and fps will be limited to how fast the cpu can throw stuff to the gpu. when you whack them up to 1600x1200 4xaa 8xaf which is the only thing you'll be using with those gpu's, then the difference in framerate is basically non existant, and those fps at the higher framerate will be WAY WAY below the cpu limits which you can see at much lower resolutions.

maybe someone with a 2200+ t-bred might like a PPU to help the cpu out(any boards that will help it?) but anything really out now will cope fine without it.

the main thing to remember is it doesn't magically do anything the cpu can't do. simple does it instead. why spend £200 on an x2 3800+ or maybe £600 on a fx 62, then spend £200 for a PPU to just stop your cpu being used as much as it can be. utter, utter, utter waste of cash right now. yes , you can argue that with basically an extra cpu the game makers can make the games much much more complex so even an overclocked conroe can't keep up and it will finally be useful. but game makers can't do that as if they make them need too much power simply put it wouldn't run on low end stuff at all.

 

[n3x]

the problem is, something i'm not sure if anyones actually pointed out, that the PPU doesn't do anything AT ALL that the cpu can't do. any extra things added into games are simply things that when the game checks for the PPU it will enable if its there. i'm sure people will crack stuff so you can use the extra effects with no PPU in and then you can see whats really going on.

the simple fact is that you don't need to take away work from the cpu to a PPU if you have ample cpu power. but, with any game you won't be near the cpu limit when you are at your gpu limit. games are 70-80% limited by the gpu, any review will tell you that, any new conroe review will show this. while the conroe is a obviously much better cpu, at 1024x768 then with a 7900gtx/1900xtx or whatever the conroe shows a far far higher framerate in most games, because the gpu can draw basically whatever the cpu can throw at it and fps will be limited to how fast the cpu can throw stuff to the gpu. when you whack them up to 1600x1200 4xaa 8xaf which is the only thing you'll be using with those gpu's, then the difference in framerate is basically non existant, and those fps at the higher framerate will be WAY WAY below the cpu limits which you can see at much lower resolutions.

maybe someone with a 2200+ t-bred might like a PPU to help the cpu out(any boards that will help it?) but anything really out now will cope fine without it.

the main thing to remember is it doesn't magically do anything the cpu can't do. simple does it instead. why spend £200 on an x2 3800+ or maybe £600 on a fx 62, then spend £200 for a PPU to just stop your cpu being used as much as it can be. utter, utter, utter waste of cash right now. yes , you can argue that with basically an extra cpu the game makers can make the games much much more complex so even an overclocked conroe can't keep up and it will finally be useful. but game makers can't do that as if they make them need too much power simply put it wouldn't run on low end stuff at all.

Well my CPU cant do the simple cloth flag in cellfactor without dropping below 1fps so what does that tell you?

 

[ihatelag]

1 - I hate when people blame game developers...since game developers use NovadeX developement environment to implement PhysX...blame is purely on AGEIA's side...certainly a team capable of releasing a game like graw can use the physx dev environments to it's best.

2 - No one wants to have increased FPS or visuals... we want to have physics without the dramatic FPS drop...so when we talk about increased FPS...we mean getting back to normal..not exceeding the performance.

3- Visual physics performance still is poor.(this is in relation to physics object interaction) But the technology is new and is still being developed. It's not worth the money at the moment.

4- Flag tearing - wow, everyone pays £200 to see a flag tearing and some juice on the floor. But when you focus on pure physics interaction of objects (the primary purpose of a PPU) you can see that the CPU can do exactly what the PPU does, infact it can be as nearly as good as it. Test the game in software mode if you don't believe me.

 

[n3x]

i think accurate rendering of cloth and such like materials will leap forward realism in games! I also read that even cellfactors amount of flying debris isnt really pushing the physx card to its limits which would explain the similar framrates with and without hardware (without the flag).

Everyones quick to diss ageia but i have to ask... what were nvidia or ati or anyone else for that matter doing with regards to interaction in games before ageia introduced their physx hardware?

I do think they should have prepared something that shipped with physx cards thats showed what they can actually do tho. I remember trying out the tech demos that I got with my 3dfx and i was like wow

Good luck to them I say, no one if forcing anyone to buy one of these cards.

 

[FreeStream]

1 - I hate when people blame game developers...since game developers use NovadeX developement environment to implement PhysX...blame is purely on AGEIA's side...certainly a team capable of releasing a game like graw can use the physx dev environments to it's best.

Quite right.

2 - No one wants to have increased FPS or visuals... we want to have physics without the dramatic FPS drop...so when we talk about increased FPS...we mean getting back to normal..not exceeding the performance.

Well, we do expect a performance increase when there is a lot of physics going on, without one it drops to 10FPS, but with a card it maintains 30FPS+, but for max FPS it should remain ruffly the same.

3- Visual physics performance still is poor.(this is in relation to physics object interaction) But the technology is new and is still being developed. It's not worth the money at the moment.

I agree, the physics arn't all that great atm. If a flight sim ever uses a physics engine, when you crash into a tree, the leaves, windows, metal all go flying the way it should. Now THATS what a physics card should do.

4- Flag tearing - wow, everyone pays £200 to see a flag tearing and some juice on the floor. But when you focus on pure physics interaction of objects (the primary purpose of a PPU) you can see that the CPU can do exactly what the PPU does, infact it can be as nearly as good as it. Test the game in software mode if you don't believe me.

Can't test, but multi-core CPUs should be able to do physics. I'd rather have a quad core CPU for £400 than a Dual-core and physics card for £400..

CR.

 

[Pottsey]

“1 - I hate when people blame game developers...since game developers use NovadeX developement environment to implement PhysX...blame is purely on AGEIA's side...certainly a team capable of releasing a game like graw can use the physx dev environments to it's best.”
When people make games with bad graphics with OpenGL or DirectX you don’t blame the API you blame the developers for not making use of the API. The same rule should apple to the NovadeX API.

Often it’s the developers usually due to working on the new API late in development of the game or other time constraints.




“you can see that the CPU can do exactly what the PPU does, infact it can be as nearly as good as it.”
When the high physics are coming into effect the CPU drops down as much as 50% less FPS over the PPU sometimes over 95% FPS less then the PPU. That’s not nearly as good that’s far worse. Don’t look at the average FPS as the high end physics are not on constantly active so the average FPS is misleading. It’s the minimum that matter and the CPU is dropping down to single digits while the PPU is not during the high end physics.

 

[FreeStream]

“1 - I hate when people blame game developers...since game developers use NovadeX developement environment to implement PhysX...blame is purely on AGEIA's side...certainly a team capable of releasing a game like graw can use the physx dev environments to it's best.”
When people make games with bad graphics with OpenGL or DirectX you don’t blame the API you blame the developers for not making use of the API. The same rule should apple to the NovadeX API.

Often it’s the developers usually due to working on the new API late in development of the game or other time constraints.




“you can see that the CPU can do exactly what the PPU does, infact it can be as nearly as good as it.”
When the high physics are coming into effect the CPU drops down as much as 50% less FPS over the PPU sometimes over 95% FPS less then the PPU. That’s not nearly as good that’s far worse. Don’t look at the average FPS as the high end physics are not on constantly active so the average FPS is misleading. It’s the minimum that matter and the CPU is dropping down to single digits while the PPU is not during the high end physics.

Right, the point is the graphics are ****, the performance is **** and the cost is not justified yet. There are no GOOD games out yet that support it, and only a few in the future anyway.

Thats an end to it.

 

[Minstadave]

Right, the point is the graphics are ****, the performance is **** and the cost is not justified yet. There are no GOOD games out yet that support it, and only a few in the future anyway.

Thats an end to it.

You mean physics cards?

 

[Richdog]

You have to give old Pottsey a 10/10 for effort though. First for insisting he is in no way affiliated with Aegia, the next for arguing against perfectl valid reasons why the PPU is currently useless.

 

[Pottsey]

“Right, the point is the graphics are ****, the performance is ****”
The graphics have nothing to due with the PPU. If you don’t like the graphics that’s the graphics cards fault or the developers not using the graphics card correctly. PPU do not handle any graphics.

The performance is not *****. Cellfactor with cloth has the PPU over 95% faster then the CPU or the minimum FPS is 50% faster without cloth.

PPU does not cause a drop in slowdown anymore so I don’t understand why you say performance is ******

 

[FreeStream]

“Right, the point is the graphics are ****, the performance is ****”
The graphics have nothing to due with the PPU. If you don’t like the graphics that’s the graphics cards fault or the developers not using the graphics card correctly. PPU do not handle any graphics.

Aha, so the reason for getting one, better physics is gone? For £200, the effects that we get is simply not worth it. The graphics card is there to render it, if the developers won't develop well for it, the whats the point in the card?

The performance is not *****. Cellfactor with cloth has the PPU over 95% faster then the CPU or the minimum FPS is 50% faster without cloth.

PPU does not cause a drop in slowdown anymore so I don’t understand why you say performance is ******

Well, I don't call 20FPS fast tbh.

Unless i've missed something, please show me.